Doctor faces trial for raping pregnant woman, killing her with heroin

NEW ALBANY, Ohio — Investigators say a former doctor going on trial this fall in Ohio raped a woman who was nine months pregnant, then killed her by injecting her with heroin.

An indictment against Ali Salim, once an emergency room physician, also alleges he abused the corpse of 23-year-old Deanna Ballman last summer and tampered with evidence during the investigation against him. He is also charged with killing Ballman’s unborn child.

But questions remain about the circumstances under which Salim and Ballman met.

Ballman had recently moved from Colorado back to Ohio with her two young children. She told her mother she was answering a housecleaning ad on Craigslist.

Investigators say she was answering a personal ad, while Salim’s attorney alleges Ballman was prostituting herself to feed a drug habit.